February retail sales climbed 1.1 percent, which was right
in line with estimates. Excluding autos, retail sales
climbed 0.9 percent which beat expectations for a 0.7 percent
gain. The best news out of all of this was that January's
headline retail sales growth number was revised up to 0.6
percent from a previous reading of 0.4 percent.

The FOMC also had some comments on jobs: "Labor market
conditions have improved further; the unemployment rate has
declined notably in recent months but remains elevated."
But there are labor market skeptics out there.
UBS's Art Cashin cited experts Doug Kass and Bill King who each saw major
problems with the current structure of the labor market.

In other jobs news, the
U.S. had 3.5 million job openings. This is according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor
Turnover (JOLT) report. Economists estimated there would
be 3.3 million openings.

The stock markets really exploded higher after
JP Morgan unexpectedly announced a new $15 billion stock
buyback program. It also boosted its quarterly
dividend to $0.30 per share from $0.25 per share. This
sent the markets a signal that JP Morgan probably passed its stress test
(bank stress test results get announced on Thursday) with
flying colors. Otherwise, the Federal Reserve wouldn't
have allowed this to happen.

Following the the JP Morgan and Bank of America headlines, the Federal
Reserve announced that it would be releasing the results of its
bank stress tests at 4:30 PM EST. The results were
initially scheduled to come out on Thursday.

In other news, the EU, U.S., and Japan have asked the World
Trade Organization to do something about
China's rare earth export restrictions, which are causing
prices to explode higher. Rare earth giant Molycorp
traded slightly higher than the major stock indices.